As Long as We Both Shall Live

A Novel

By: JoAnn Chaney

Narrated by: Christina Delaine

You can’t be married to someone without sometimes wanting to kill them....

As Long as We Both Shall Live is JoAnn Chaney’s wicked, masterful examination of a marriage gone very wrong, a marriage with lots of secrets....

“My wife! I think she’s dead!” Matt frantically tells park rangers that he and his wife, Marie, were hiking when she fell off a cliff into the raging river below. They start a search, but they aren’t hopeful: No one could have survived that fall. It was a tragic accident.

But Matt’s first wife also died in suspicious circumstances. And when the police pull a body out of the river, they have a lot more questions for Matt.

Detectives Loren and Spengler want to know if Matt is a grieving, twice-unlucky husband or a cold-blooded murderer. They dig into the couple’s lives to see what they can unearth. And they find that love’s got teeth, it’s got claws, and once it hitches you to a person, it’s tough to rip yourself free.

So what happens when you’re done making it work?

©2019 JoAnn Chaney (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Unputdownable….This novel is anything but predictable. The female characters are forces of nature, and the plot twists are deliciously demented, a la Gone Girl and Big Little Lies.” (People)

Loved the narration

Enjoyed the police characters. Great story with good twists. Would recommend this book and I will check out more by this author.

The voice ruined it for me.

Although I enjoyed this book’s plot and characters, the narrator’s voice was so abrasive that I didn’t finish it.
I realize that voice preferences are subjective, but it felt to me like Ms. Delaine wanted so badly to sound hard-boiled that at first, I thought she was joking. It seemed disingenuous and I just couldn’t listen to it anymore, though I was about half-finished with the book. This is a highly unusual occurrence for me, in fact, it has happened to me only once before, a number of years ago. It was a book called “Plum Island” by Nelson DeMille, and was read by a male narrator, who also affected a hard-boiled way of speaking.
I mean no insult to Ms. Delaine. I am sure that everyone else loves her narration. It simply took too much away from the book for me to enjoy it.

engaging

very well told story. would have prefered a male voice for the male parts but was able to deal with it.

Too much cliche language

The overuse of cliche language was distracted from what was overall a decent story.

A compelling listen

This novel is not your typical story of a marriage. Rather, it is a tale of secrets, deviousness, and hatred within the confines of a 24 year marriage between two people who probably should never have ended up together. There are many twists and turns that will keep the reader in suspense, and it is doubtful that one will be able to guess the outcome of this mystery in advance. The story moved quickly and held my interest throughout. The narration was also good and overall this was a pleasant listen. I recommend this book to people who like mysteries and suspense.